Lanternfall Cocktail

Lanternfall

A Raventhorne Pour

The name isn’t mine. Sailors gave it that—same way they name most things: poorly, and too late to matter.

They say it comes from the lights slipping into the bay when a man has had more than he should. Little constellations drifting under black water. Pretty, from a distance. Less so when you’re the one watching them go.

People like that sort of story. Makes the drink feel like it belongs to something older than their own decisions. It doesn’t.

It’s rye, mostly. The kind that doesn’t pretend to be anything but what it is—dry, a little sharp, and entirely uninterested in whether you’re ready for it. Sweet vermouth rounds the edge just enough to keep you from noticing how much you’ve had. Chocolate bitters sit underneath it all, dark and quiet, doing their work long before you realize they’re there.

The cherry is less for garnish and more for patience. You leave it at the bottom and let the rest of the glass tell you what kind of night you’re having. If you’re still paying attention by the time you reach it, you might even taste the difference.

Most don’t.

That’s the trick, I suppose. Not the drink itself—there’s nothing especially clever about it. Anyone with a steady hand and a tolerance for repetition could make the same thing. What matters is that people arrive already halfway convinced. They don’t want a good drink. They want to believe this one will do something the others didn’t.

I don’t argue with them. Tasmin says it wouldn’t be good for business, and I’ve a debt to repay.

Besides, they’re right anyway. Just not in the way they think. It does do something. It removes whatever part of you was still pretending you’d stop at one, and the rest is just gravity.

And sooner or later, everything falls.

Print Recipe

Lanternfall Cocktail (Manhattan)

Rye, sweet vermouth, chocolate bitters, and a black cherry—dark as harbor water and twice as dangerous.

Course: Drinks

Ingredients

• 2 oz rye
• ¾ oz sweet vermouth
• ¼ oz cherry schnapps
• 2 dashes chocolate bitters
• 1 Luxardo cherry

Instructions

• Add rye, vermouth, schnapps, and bitters to a mixing glass with ice
• Stir for ~20-25 seconds until properly chilled
• Strain into a chilled coupe glass
• Drop in the cherry

About Author

Jäckel the Intoxicologist

“It’s pronounced ‘Jeckel’ thank you. Learn your umlauts, you halfwits!”

Jäckel the Intoxicologist tends bar at The Summoning Grounds in Raventhorne, Lower Ryknût. It’s not by choice that he’s there. A mishap in his lab left him with a sizable debt. With no functioning lab, he has no revenue stream. Because his training is primarily (al)chemical, the apothecary assumed a bar would keep him at least adjacent to his trade.

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